Disruptive innovations often start out as worse versions of something that already exists. Worse along all dimensions except for one, but one that turns out to really matter because it unlocks a new use case for which the incumbent does not work at all or is not affordable. The PC was slower, had less memory and less storage than a minicomputer. But it was massively more affordable and could be set up and run without the help of the centralized IT department. That’s why the early adoption of PCs was in parts of companies that did not have minicomputer access.

Direct networking among consumer mobile phones is a disruptive innovation. It doesn’t give you the bandwidth of, say, LTE. If there is extra hardware involved it only works between participants who have that hardware. But it has one crucial advantage: it works even when the mobile network infrastructure is down (e.g., during an emergency) or where it doesn’t exist at all (e.g., when hiking in the deep countryside).

Extra hardware paired with your phone is exactly the approach that goTenna has been pursuing for phone-to-phone communication. They have been shipping tens of thousands of their first device which are in use by outdoor enthusiasts and also by emergency responders.

goTenna’s latest product, goTenna Mesh is about to ship and supports mesh networking. That means as more people in an area have the product, phone-to-phone connectivity improves for everyone. Including one super cool feature: with SMS network relay, if any phone in the mesh also is connected to the SMS mobile network then all the goTenna-enabled phones can relay regular text messages out through the SMS-capable device.

We are excited to be leading the Series B round for goTenna. The team has accomplished all of this on very little capital to date, including the development of the mesh protocol and of a hardened Pro device which will start shipping later this year. We believe this is a disruptive innovation in connectivity, and a perfect fit with the Access 2.0 portion of our current investment thesis.

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